Voyager 2, launched in 1977 to fly by Jupiter and Saturn, is still working, now at the edge of interstellar space. Three weeks ago, however, it stopped sending back sensible scientific data, as reported in this blog, and controllers ordered it to transmit only engineering data until they could work out what had gone wrong.
Well, they worked it out. One bit in the craft's computer memory was on 0 when it should have been on 1. Such a simple thing. Once fixed, Voyager 2 was back to sending solid data back to the pale blue dot it left so long ago.
The previous two centuries have produced an extraordinary array of technological and scientific achievements by humans. Listing the greatest of them is both difficult and unnecessary. Somewhere in the mix, however, the greatest achievements of NASA have to be considered, and among those have to be the flights of the Voyagers.
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